I n 1972 Parliament decided that the United Kingdom should join the European Economic Community, a decisdion endorsed three years later in a referendum. These _ecisioas were...

Hatters' Ratters strike again Ferdinand Mount The thought processes of Mr Roy Hattersley provoke both curiosity and anxiety. What exactly is it that decides the Secretary of...

Unlike the editor of the New Statesman, I did not refuse the invitation to lunch last Week with Richard Nixon. Mr Nixon may be a villain, but he is an interesting vill ain. And...

A Royal Commission? Auberon Waugh Minehead, Somerset In the reporting of committal proceedings at a magistrates court, the prosecution might be expected to have a field day,...

Richard West Salisbury Are the other side in this war 'guerrillas o r terrorists'? Most foreign reporters avoid the word 'terrorist', as smacking o f government propaganda,...

Nicholas Ashford Johannesburg Whatever else may be said about Namibia/South West Africa's first all-race elections which were taking place throughout this week, they were...

Sam White Paris There are many reasons why the French left finds itself in a crippled state nine months after its near-victory in the March general elections, and one of the...

David Bonavia Hong Kong In a strange reversal of history, China's vice-premier Teng Hsiao-Ping has resorted to demagoguery to cow his political rivals and downgrade the cult of...

William Chislett Managua The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi might have to send some more peace reinforcements to Nicaragua if General Somoza and the °PPosition do not soon agree on a...

Michael Cockerell Louis Heren, the Deputy Editor of The Times, is proud of his cockney origins, his long experience in. Washington and his journalistic machismo. On the night...

Marione Wallace t-I PPer-class Poles have a favourite phrase Which they whisper in semi-detached drawing rooms from Ealing to Acton ,tnatka z domu' or loosely translated, was...

Peter Ackroyd When he makes a point he leans forward, as though on the verge of toppling over, and then pulls back sharply. When he tells a joke he sways from side to side,...

Patrick Marnham S uPPosing The Times really has shut down? T hroughout the rather agreeable Dooms day capers of last week the general assump tion was that it would certainly be...

Market directions Nicholas Davenport On Friday last week turnover on the Stock Exchange suddenly dropped like a stone. The Queen and Prince Philip were paying an official...

One at least, perhaps the greatest, of the many drawbacks to our civilisation, to that gradual increase in our knowledge of Nature and our command over it which we call...

S ir: Mrs Collier (Letters, 2 December) suggests that the Parthenon frieze, together With other fifth century Greek art, is characterised by 'a thoughtful serenity, a timeless...

Sir: I wish we weren't beset by a thousand Misa pprehensions, but alas we are; the Spec(tor recently referring to Dorothy Parker's t smissal of a Broadway production: 'there's...

lived in , an age 'around 500 BC'. Mrs Collier says I said, nonsensically, that Socrates was 'around in 500 BC'. Mrs ,Collier thus illustrates another point I was . Ir Ying to...

side of the paper is written: 'All etans are liars' and on the other: 'I am a Reading this sort of thing in the Spectator, „,...was reminded of President Ford in a cievisiort...

Sir: Your article of 25 November, 'Cults and the death wish', I find to be quite intriguing. Christopher Booker, however, I ant afraid by attempting to explain spiritual values...

Sir: In the poem you kindly printed to celebrate the Professor of Poetry election at Oxford! omitted to include three candidates — Ronald Duncan and the two others (I forget...

Sir: In the Spectator Notebook (24 November), Alexander Chancellor referred to an instance of a taxi driver who refused, illegally, to take him to his destination. In an effort...

Sir: Richard Ingrams wonders ( 2 December) whether his reaction to finding Tom Stoppard on television a bore is because he is a 'clapped-out man' or because the Bernard Levins...

Sir: Your correspondent, M.W. Balladon (18 November) is no better at pointing oil t the causes of inflation than the contributo r he takes to task. I should have thought that...

Facts and fancies Christopher Booker whItakers Almanack 1979 (Whitaker Cloth 25.75; Shorter Edition 22.80; Library Edition e7.50) For more than two hundred years there have...

Alastair Forbes Gossip Andrew Barrow (Hamish Hamilton. £10.00) The Visitor's Book Christopher Simon Sykes (Weidenfeld E12.50) Long before the date usually set aside in a once...

Patrick Cosg rave Ben-Gurion Michael Bar-Zohar (Weidenfold £12.95) H ad it not been for David Ben-Gurion the state of Israel would not have been proclaimed in May, 1948. This...

Simon Blow Thrown to the Woolfs John Lehmann (Weidenfeld E6.50) To those still harbouring dreams of Bloomsbury or the romance of publishing, John Lehmann's association with the...

Tim Garton Ash The Weimar Chronicle: Prelude to Hitler Alex de Jonge (Paddington £6.50) The New Sobriety 1917-1933: Art and Politics in the Weimar Period John Willett (Thames &...

Emma Fisher New Poetry 4: An Arts Council Anthology Fleur Adcock and Anthony Thwaite (Arts Council, Hutchinson and P.E.N. £4.50) Springtime in the Rockies Brian Marley (Trigram...

Paul Potts The Collected Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid Vols I and II (Martin Brian and O'Keeffe £15) Hugh MacDiarmid, who died a few weeks ago at the age of eighty-six, was with...

Paul Ableman A Twentieth-Century Man David Benedictus (Blond & Briggs £4.95) This book has one serious fault; it is far too short. It should be at least three, and preferably...

Marina Warner I I he Poster tells us: 'This Man is El Dorado'. I shows us an Indian wearing a fearsome flat disc in his nose and other golden regalia . and its unabashed...

Charles McCorquodale The forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy, Painting in Florence 16001700, can claim two rather unexpected firsts: incredibly, there has never been a...

Michael Wigan Never before has the art and antique market been so much in the public eye. Apart from the startling escalation in saleroom prices, and the protest about the...

John McEwen Art books are a bit like salmon: one tends to think of them in terms of poundage, of whether they are fit to be eaten (bought) or stuffed (referred to). Some — very...

Benny Green Hogarth is something of a special case among English painters, a great artist who often used his genius as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself. For...

John McEwen It is a typical anomaly of British art that the most important painting competition it has to offer takes place biannually in Liverpool. There, to his eternal...

Peter Jenkins Strife (Olivier) The Machine Wreckers ((Half Moon) In a century whose shattering discovery has been that the abolition of capitalism is incompatible with the...

Art movie Ted Whitehead Interiors (Cinecenta) For two years, reviewing theatre o f cinema, I've managed to avoid the us e ,,, e the word 'Art', because I believe that word has...

Generations Richard Ingrams The most baffling sight in recent days was, that of the undergraduates at the Oxford Union rising to their feet to give an ovation to Richard...

Clubland Taki New York The disco war of New York heated up and exploded this week. The three major powers of disco — Studio 54, Xenon and Regine's, each using the same battle...

Back again Jeffrey Bernard By the time you read these nervous lines I will have committed yet another act of gross folly. I will have addressed the sixth form of Sevenoaks...

As Wini said Geoffrey Wheatcroft Oral history is notoriously unreliable and deceiving. Everyone's memory plays tricks. The more are the memories involved, the 10 0 re does...